Machines that can automatically serve human beings have been the subject of invention since the first machines were conceived millennia ago. The world's first automatic serving machine was designed by Heron of Alexandria in 63 CE. This consisted of a device for automatically dispensing holy water upon the receipt of a coin. A person put a 5 Drachma coin in a slot at the top of a box, and the coin hits a metal lever attached by a string to a plug that stops a container of liquid. The beam is configured as a balance beam, and so as the beam tilts from the weight of the coin, the string lifts the plug and dispenses the desired drink until the coin drops off the beam. [For a description of this invention, see Kerry Segrave, Vending Machines: An American Social History (Mcfarland & Co, Jefferson, N.C., 2002)]. This invention was a simple mechanical device, driven by gravity, and limited to doing one type of thing, in one location, with no ability to process information or make independent decisions.
Book serving machines were devised in England in 1822 by Richard Carlile in an attempt to avoid press censorship—the book was selected by the user and dispensed automatically, so banned books could be purchased with the seller nowhere nearby, allowing the seller to avoid technical charges of sedition [For a description of this invention, see Martin V. Marshall, Automatic Merchandising; a study of the problems and limitations of vending, (Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1954)] For the first time a vending machine had an element of interactivity, with the purchaser selecting the book to be purchased and then depositing money. It is not clear whether these systems were autonomous. They certainly were not programmable, mobile, or of generalized functionality.
A fully automatic selling machine was described in a patent application of Simeon Denham of Wakefield in Yorkshire, England, in 1857. [Simeon Denham, A SELF ACTING MACHINE FOR THE DELIVERY OF POSTAGE AND RECEIPT STAMPS, GB Provisional Patent No. 706/1857, 11 Mar. 1857]. This machine was designed to sell a stamp for a penny from a strip of postage stamps contained within it. Denham was given a provisional patent protection, however it does not appear that this crude device, was ever realized in a working form. Again, this device lacked any form of programmability, mobility or autonomous decision-making.
The first fully patented automatic serving device widely recognized to be commercially successful went to John G Sandeman & Percival Everitt [John G. Sandeman & P. Everitt, GB Patent 2033/1883, issued 21 Apr. 1883; and APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY DELIVERING PREPAID GOODS TO ACCORD WITH THE PRICE PAID THEREFOR, U.S. Pat. No. 323,213, Issued 28, Jul. 1885]. Devices to vend other products soon followed through the 1880s, including some of the first US patents on the topic. Percival Everitt filed a patent for a perfume dispensing machine [P. Everitt, AN APPARATUS FOR THE DELIVERY OF A GIVEN QUANTITY OF LIQUID IN EXCHANGE FOR A COIN, U.S. Pat. No. 371,257, issued 11 Oct. 1887], as well as improvements thereof [P. Everitt, VENDING MACHINE, U.S. Pat. No. 402,515, issued 30 Apr. 1889].
Other commercially successful early vending machines include a device for dispensing packaged goods, including cigarettes and chewing gum [Frederic B. Cochran, COIN-OPERATED VENDING-MACHINE, U.S. Pat. No. 412,469 issued 8 Oct. 1889]. These devices represented the first commercially successful attempts at what came to be known as “robotic” sales. However they operated with manual power provided by the purchaser. They never had the ability to move independently, were not programmable and could only respond to the direct interaction of a user. They had no real anticipatory intelligence.
The first service machine to come with its own source of power was invented by Norman Willis Russ in 1888 [N. W. Russ, COIN OPERATED ELECTRICAL APPARATUS, U.S. Pat. No. 382,734, issued 15 May, 1888]. This was a coin-operated apparatus for delivering electric shocks to people. The power source was an electric pile (an early form of battery). It is important to note that the electricity that was the product of the machine still relied on the manual action of people. While intriguing in that it represented the first time an autonomous service machine with its own power-source appears, the machine wasn't programmable, couldn't move independently and only had very limited user iteration. In this case the coin was deposited and a shock would be dispensed. Perhaps in the days before widespread availability of electricity the delivery of electric shocks was a novelty or seen as medically beneficial, however the present day utility of such a device is unclear. Nonetheless, this device did not use autonomous power to operate the device; the mechanism was still driven by the fall of a mechanical coin. This device clearly had no programmability, no ability to move and no anticipatory intelligence.
With the advent of electrically powered vending machines in the 1940s and 1950s the concept of “robot” selling arose, [see, for example, “Robot selling gets its first big test”, Business Week, May 27, 1950, pp. 70-71,73]. The Machines anticipated in this prior art however are electrically powered vending machines. They are largely fixed to the ground, and while they can dispense a dizzying array of products as well as, in some cases, heat those products. With the exception of interpreting a selection indicated by the press of a button, they cannot make independent decisions they are not programmable, nor are they mobile.
In 1942 Raymond Loewy and Harry A. Drew patented a vending machine with wheels [Raymond Loewy and Harry A. Drew, VENDING MACHINE, U.S. Pat. No. 2,299,583 issued 20 Oct. 1942]. The intent was to devise a system that could be wheeled out to car drivers. This represents the first time that a vending machine was not fixed to one location. However this vending machine did not move under its own power; it required a human operator to move it. Further the human operator needed to make decisions about where the machine would go and how it would operate. While this machine did have its own source of power in the form of a battery, this was not used to operate the machine; it merely provided a light to indicate to the operator when the machine would need to be restocked. There was no programmability, and it required physical modifications to vend different types of product.
In 1958 Regina Klein Patented an automatic dispenser for trucks. [Regina Klein, ADVERTISING LITERATURE AND ARTICLES DISPENSER FOR TRUCKS, U.S. Pat. No. 2,852,159 issued 16 Sep. 1958]. This was a simple mechanism that enabled trucks to throw newspapers towards the front doors of peoples housed. This concept included the notion of a punched tape to determine the location the paper should be thrown. However this machine was not truly programmable in the current sense of the word. The punched tape merely ran and determined the time when a paper would be thrown. It wouldn't actually run a computer program in the sense of loading on a general purpose computing system. The paper tape mechanism existed to enable the machine to operate different routes.
In 1987 Dale Kramer filed a patent for a remotely controlled vehicle [Dale C. Kramer, REMOTELY-CONTROLLED VEHICLE, U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,493, issued 4 Jul. 1989]. This was a remotely controlled golf cart that was intended to follow its owner around a golf course. This system had its own source of power in the form of a battery. However again this was a specific purpose device—carrying only golf clubs and intended for use in a golf course. The device did not have general programmability, and while it was mobile, and had its own source of power.
In 2001 William Credle, Jr. et al. of the Coca Cola Company filed a patent application that issued as two patents [William S. Credle, Jr., John P. Giles, & James Michael Watson, METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REMOTE SALES OF VENDED PRODUCTS, U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,100, issued 1 Apr. 2003; and its Divisional U.S. Pat. No. 6,742,673, issued 1 Jun. 2004]. In these patents a system to bring vended products to the consumers along a predetermined route is described. However this invention intends for the cart to move along a predetermined route or with remote control, and so it does not truly navigate in its environment. It requires a human operator to tell it where to go.
Overall, the prior art covers a wide range of applications where machines interact with and do things that are useful for humans or non-humans. There are some systems that have elements of mobility; however almost none truly can understand the nature of their environment and therefore they cannot navigate in it. The overwhelming majority of these devices gather power externally (e.g. from a plug in wall socket or frequently from the operator themselves), and although there are some that have their own internal source of power, this power is typically application specific, designed to operate the specific functions that the machine was devised for rather than being of general nature for whatever the machine might be tasked with. Lastly the provision of general purpose computing capabilities to enable the machine to make general decisions is not present. No prior art examples are known to the inventors that comprise a robot or other automated service machine simultaneously endowed with mobility, navigation, power and computing capabilities, and in which these capabilities are available in a general-purpose manner that can be re-tasked to a variety of applications. And there are certainly no prior art examples known to the inventors of such a robot that is additionally provided with a coupling that enables one to attach external items that extend the functionality of the robot to engage in a variety of tasks.
Because of this, such systems are constrained to a narrow set of operations, such as food and beverage serving, and cannot be applied to a wide variety of applications. Therefore it would be desirable to have a machine unit that can be mass produced, reducing costs, and yet tasked with a variety of roles, from serving food and drink, to conveying items in a manufacturing area, to supporting other functionality such as marketing or telepresence. For this purpose the machine base unit would need to have mobility, navigation, power and computing capabilities, along with a means for attaching various additional items to extend the capabilities.